Page 96 of Love to Hate You

“Do you love her?” Randy asked, as if he already knew the answer.

“Love?” Wes choked. “We’ve only known each a few weeks.”

“You’ve been circling each other for months. And when you know, you know.”

All that Wes knew was that the thought of getting on that jet and never seeing her again made an ache the size of a golf ball form in his throat. But he didn’t want to string her along when he couldn’t see marriage in his future. Once upon a time he’d imagined marriage and kids, the whole thing, but he’d never seen that kind of love growing up. Hell, his own dad hadn’t even wanted him.

He’d thought he’d found it in his ex-fiancée, but then she’d left him when his company went through a rough patch and he wasn’t worth millions, and it had further tainted that dream. Then his dad had passed and both of his companies had needed all of his attention. They still did. So no, he wasn’t sure he wanted to reopen that box.

“I’d still be gone two weeks or so every month. Summer deserves more than a drive-by husband.”

“Summer deserves to be loved by the man she loves.”

Wes’s stomach crammed into his chest, nearly choking him, which was fine since his lungs stopped working. “She loves me?”

“Of course she does. You’d have to be an idiot not to see the way she looks at you,” Randy said. “That woman is crazy about you.”

There was no way in hell that a sweet and joyful woman like Summer could ever fall for a man who chose his job over love. Although looking back, he and his fiancée hadn’t been together so much for love, it had been compatibility and convenience.

What if she actually, somehow, magically was in love with him? Was he stupid enough to walk away from that?

“Man”—Randy clapped him on the shoulder—“welcome to the club. It only gets better from here.”

Chapter 28

friennies with bennies

Summer’s phone pinged the second the front door to the shop burst open. She looked up from the window, which was a collage of all Sloan Chase’s backlist books. The publicist had sent an advanced copy of her new release, which was highlighted in the display.

Someone had already offered her a thousand dollars for the book. But Summer had politely declined, explaining that in her contract no one was allowed to read or purchase the copy. And Summer wasn’t about to do anything to jinx this signing. She had followed everything to the letter.

She had read the book herself to prepare for the interview and it was Sloan’s best work to date. She’d reread it three times—the juicy parts five.

The five thousand dollars had been painful to part with, and her bank account needed some serious CPR when it all was said and done, but it was going to be worth it. She could feel it in her bones. The podcast had sold out in under ten minutes, they already had over a thousand preorders of the hardback, and every single shop on the street had put a flyer in the window and a free bookmark by the register. She’d sent out two emails already and had a sixty-five percent open rate, and had done an email swap with twenty-two different bookshops in a three-hour radius—which was phenomenal.

Even more phenomenal was the person who was stalking toward her. A six-three wall of muscle dressed like aGQmodel and looking like a powder keg ready to explode—with excitement. What a change from the man who’d tried to have her car towed. What a change indeed.

He glanced around the store and then his eyes went immediately to hers, as if she were the beacon he’d been looking for. His gaze raked her body up and down and she felt like prey about to be pounced on.

She slid her hands down her jeans and remembered that she was in her uniform she wore when dealing with stock. A work shirt, tattered old jeans, and tennies. No makeup and her hair must look like a squirrel’s tail, and she was covered in a fine layer of dust from moving around boxes in the back room to make space for the insane amount of Sloan Chase books that the distributor had sent out for the signing.

As he stalked toward her, he heard a collection ofOh my’sandI wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crackers, come from the Smut Club who had gathered around the reading section of the shop. Every eye followed him as he strutted toward Summer, shoulders back, chest puffed out, gaze set toI’m going to eat you for dinner.

Summer’s thighs began to tremble and her core became a furnace, radiating out to her limbs and covering her neck and face. She wasn’t blushing, she was preparing for the attack.

Without a word he slung her over his shoulder like caveman, walked her down the hallway into her office, and kicked the door shut.

“Babe,” she scolded. “Put me down.”

He gently set her on her feet. “Call me that again.”

“Babe?” she whispered, and it was as if she had unleashed an animal.

A primal look came over his features and his nostrils flared. He took her hands and pinned them to the door above her head. “I like it when you call me that.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s your name for me. It’s a statement that I’m yours.” He moved his body against hers and she could feel his erection pushing into her belly. “Am I yours, love?”

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